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Re: John Hagelin: Old vs New Approach in Agriculture
The link between American affluence and third world poverty provides many
of the answers to these question. Institutional (read international
economic) structures maintain a system of united nations where the dominant
paradigm of consumption is forced upon any country wishing to become a
member of the United Nations. An international economic system drawn from
a paper by Keynes called something like "The War and How to Pay for It"
gives a zero value to subsistence farming and the unpaid work of women thus
rendering over half of the world's population as "unproductive". Further
it entrenches the military industrial complex as the major source of
economic surpluses in the developed nations leaving third world nations as
massive importers of military hardware and exporters of cash crops - the
source of the only "productive" agriculture.
Third world poverty is as a result of our continued resource use and
accumulation of affluence (and the power to maintain it).
I agree with the point made by Karen that there is a spurious link between
welfare payments and child numbers. There seems to be this perception that
welfare is Nirvana for the inherently lazy. This is part of the grand
modernist philosophy that seems to continue to get up just when you thought
it was dead.
On another point - what effect has Bill Mollison and his "Permaculture"
system had on agricultural academic inquiry?
Adam Lippiatt
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